Category: Finished Series: Action

Rinne no Lagrange – 14

by psgels, posted in Rinne no Lagrange

There have been plenty of series in which five series that I was blogging would air on the same day. I cannot recall any season in which that number reached up to six, though. Seriously, Rinne, Uchuu Kyoudai, Total Eclipse, Jinrui, Hyouka and AKB0048 all air on the same bloody day, talk about overkill. The only explanation I can think of this is that series are trying to group themselves amongst the two most popular time-slots for anime: Noitamina on Thursday and the prime time slot on Sunday. Although that doesn’t make ay sense for Sundays either, because the prime time slot airs in the afternoon. Are they counting on people staying up watching TV until late at night?

In ay case, Rinne no Lagrange’s sequel has now officially started, after last week’s recap. And it does so very solidly with a 1-year time-skip. Most of this episode was meant to highlight the character-development, with in particular focusing on how Madoka has matured up. Those changes were definitely my favorite parts of this series., because they show how the island Madoka live son is alive: things change there too.

Also, there appears to be something that is so bad that it forces Muginami to want to kill Madoka. This will undoubtedly be a major theme for this second season, as it has been hinted that Muginami and Lan both went through a lot during thee time-skip. The biggest challenge for the creators will be to make all of this plausible and relatable.
Rating: *+ (Great)
OP: Same style, catchier song.
ED: The song here is a collection of musical ideas that just don’t work. It’s weird.

Eureka Seven Ao – 12

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

I already saw some reactions on the shoutbox about this episode, but as I started watching the episode I started wondering what was up. Sure, it brought in some nice plot twists and all, especially with the way in which Ao has been piloting the Nirvash, and how well it relates back to the first season of Eureka Seven. It was all interesting, but nothing like what the previous episodes have shown us. And then the Scab Coral crashed into the earth.

HOLY CRAP! Oh my GOD, my mind has been completely blown here. That was absolutely amazing! Christ, the reappearance of the Gekko-Gou already made me yelp out loud, but the actual cliff-hanger of this episode was the real shocker. I’m a bit speechless by this.

But yeah, with this it’s now pretty clear that this series was made for the fans of Eureka Seven. If anyone plans to check this series out: watch Eureka Seven first. This is pretty much what Last Exile – Ginyoku no Fam should have been doing: involve its older cast more: as side-characters who do have a significant meaning to the story, rather than being random cameos. With this, Eureka Seven Ao just became the best teenaged-focused sci-fi series of the year.

On a random note: why are people surprised with blue hair when there are purple-haired people walking around the world?!
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

AKB0048 – 10

by psgels, posted in AKB0048

Around ten years ago, beach episodes and hot spring bath episodes were already a staple. Somewhere along the way though, creators got clever. Why not combine them into one? Granted, this is more bearable, but it still is a really dead horse that gets used way too much. Mari Okada, you should know this.

Still, underneath all of the boob jokes was the same kind of cynicism of the other episodes, with the extreme focus on looking “sexy”, being forced upon teenaged girls like that. This did give the beach part of the episode a point. As for the bath scene though… that was pointless like a broken pencil.

Also, while it was previously hinted that “graduation” could possibly mean death, that rumour turned out to be false. It seems like you simply get kicked out because you’ve gotten too old. Instead the big fear is never being able to achieve your dream of making it into the spotlights, which I guess does fit quite nicely into this series’ themes. Instead, there were members who lost their lives, and that mostly had to do with that mysterious front line position.

I’m a bit puzzled right now about the structure of this series. I mean, from my experience, one of the earliest ways to determine how many episodes a series will b is to search for DVD releases on the Japanese Amazon. If six or seven are scheduled, the you can bet your hat that there will only be 13 episodes. AKB however is a bit of an oddball in this, because I can only see 5 dvds listed. That fifth DVD will carry up to episode 13, but it seems a bit of a weird number for a series that just is scheduled for 1 cour, especially since this is a type of series that people want to cash in on: there is no reason to have less merchandise than usual.
Rating: * (Good)

Eureka Seven Ao – 11

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

With this, I’m sure: ever since creating Eureka Seven, the creators watched Evangelion. When thinking of this series as a cross between these two, it all makes sense, and that only means that things will get even more interesting when the second half hits. This episode once again was really awesome and it loved playing mind tricks on the characters.

This is the kind of series that, once it pulls a background episode, completely changes the characters in question. Elena has mostly been a side-characters o far, but her real background got revealed in this episode and it just kept taking twists and turns, especially since the reason why she did all that hasn’t been revealed yet. The only thing this episode showed that she was spy that somehow ended up performing as a rock star all over the world and that she finally buried that part of herself at the end of this episode. This episode revealed so much, only to kill this off again, yet I can’t help but hope that there will be many different consequences from this episode.

What has impressed me the most here is the interesting things that this series does with its character. Not only Elena was great, but the rest of the cast also had some nice and funny touches, like cutting off George’s nose, or how everyone, ranging from her father to the secrets, are teasing Fleur with any possible hint of romantic development.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)

Zetman Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Zetman



Anime as a medium has a lot of great points, but its system also has plenty of disadvantages. One of those problems: producing a full fledged anime series is expensive. Now try finding someone who’ll fund the production of a full fledged series for the adaptation of your obscure manga. This problem has been huge, especially after anime started to become more popular and the amount of series produced each season increased. Six years ago the common length of a series was 26 episodes. Today it is half of that. Zetman is another one of these series with a huge manga that had to be stuffed into just 13 episodes. This seemed like a recipe for disaster, but holy crap it definitely tried to make the most of what it had.

Let me get one thing straight though: this series is rushed. Incredibly rushed. But here is the thing: among the incredibly rushed series of only 13 episodes long, it is one of the best. The reason for that is tha the plot, while flimsy at times, never really falls apart: the story has a clear beginning, middle and end and it has a fairly good progression. The ending also doesn’t feel tacked on at the last minute and actually closes off the series properly. Sure, a lot of things had to be cut and rearranged for this, but at lest this series feels complete and not a cop-out.

This series stands out with how much raw passion has been put into it. The character designs look gorgeous when they are put into action due to all of the details that the creators put into the facial expressions of the characters. There is a lot of great animation in this series that attempts to bring the characters to life, and even though it’s clear that this series has a small budget, the creators tried to use their budget as much as possible and make every frame have a strong visual presence. Especially the first episode has some animation that deserves to be checked out, and even though the episodes after that never manage to be as well animated, there still are plenty of interesting visuals throughout the series.

This is a series about Superheroes and it pushes the limits of what it means to be a superhero throughout the series, but this series also has a lot of themes about family. Whether you should watch this series if you’ve read the Zetman manga.. I have no idea. If this isn’t the case though and you’re in for an over the top and expressive series and don’t mind many graphic themes as rape, then call this a recommendation because despite being rushed, Zetman turned out to be a very engaging series.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Should have been 39 episodes, but surprisingly this show doesn’t fall apart, nor leaves with a bad inconclusive ending.
Characters: 8.5/10 – Very expressive characters and this series loves to challenge the beliefs of its cast.
Production-Values: 8.5/10 – Amazing detail on the facial expressions. That’s the point where Zetman really set itself apart in terms of graphics this season.
Setting: 8/10 – Takes the concept of superheroes and does very interesting things with them. It just could have been so much more interesting if it had more episodes.

Suggestions:
– Hitsuji no Uta
– Mononoke
– Shinrei Taneti Yakumo

Zetman – 13

by psgels, posted in Zetman

That was actually fairly conclusive. There was a definite “life goes on”-theme, but there is no pointless sequel hook, and in a way this kind of ending fits and definitely beats the alternative of trying to solve everything. Players still roam around the world, but there are so many of them that an epic climax isn’t going to fix that easily without some random convenient Deus ex Machina.

Instead, this episode focused on what the series has been about: the plans of the bad guys to corrupt Kouga and Jin. Haitani didn’t really stand a chance, but that’s only because of the build-up done in episode one where Kanzaki educated Jin as a human. Without that the ending would have been completely different. Kouga meanwhile would also have gone completely out of control if it wasn’t for Jin. In a way, these were anti-climaxes, but I like those when pulled off right: this episode still was action-packed and a worthy cliff-hanger, and only at the end it became clear that none of the bad guys had a chance to succeed in these particular circumstances.

Seriously, this could have been much worst. At this point, I have seen so many rushed series end horribly, but Zetman actually avoided that. Of course this series should have been 39 episodes, but for a series that was crammed in way too little time, it was a very good attempt.

I only have two complaints: first of all is that random scene in which the Sweeper came along and said that his master wanted to see him. That’s not exactly a sequel-hook, but again it’s completely pointless and didn’t belong there at all. Second is that in the end, the animation in this episode didn’t try to go back to the quality of episode one. It’s a pity, but even with that taken into account TMS Entertainment really surpassed itself this season.

Also, who was that smooth voice that suddenly popped up as a narrator?
Rating: *+ (Great)

Aquarion Evol Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Aquarion Evol



There is one director out there for which I’m ashamed to admit that I’m a huge tsundere: Shoji Kawamori. No, it’s not Shinbo, because with him there is a well distinct line between his good stuff and his bad stuff. With Kaawamori though, I both love and hate his works. I know his tropes, I know wow he’s a huge troll, and yet I nearly always end up blogging his series. And this time he’s working together with Mari Okada!

The result is a completely bizarre mecha-epic that is chock full of sexual context. I mean, romance and mecha have been done plenty of times before, but this show really takes it up to eleven: everything in this series is about romance: the mechas in this series can fuse by having three characters enter orgasm mode, it’s chock full of love triangles and subplots that all have their own storylines, and there is a ton of symbolism in this series, everything relating down to some sexual context in one way or the others. This series really is about men versus women and the tensions between them and it does all of this over the top.

The result is a really fun and often bizarre and cheesy series that definitely has plenty of entertainment value. It’s got a solid script so everything fits together very well, and the themes connect well with the characters, the plot and vice versa. the plot is well built up, but has a few issues: being incredibly cliched at times, and making no sense whatsoever. The cliches are often played straight with a very conscious purpose, but this does lead to a bunch of cringe-worthy been-there done-that episodes, along with a completely useless female lead who fails to do anything throughout the entire series. The plot has a few nice twists, but ultimately it’s just too stupid and corny to really stand out.

This show will most likely be remembered through some of its bizarre symbolism, though. This show can get completely crazy at times and it has some of the most wtf-inducing ways of introducing new powers or have characters learn something new. There was a slight danger of the creators turning this too much into a formula, but this was neatly avoided with a plot that did keep changing.

A guilty pleasure? I wouldn’t really call Aquarion that. Aquarion knows exactly what it is and what it isn’t. It’s a show that’s heaps of fun to watch as it explored the sparks and chemistry between men and women. And for this, its main plot had to be incredibly corny and it refuses to make any iota of sense. the result is a series that is overall very entertaining, but does have a number of lesser parts when the script is trying to make sure that the plot and characters actually remain strong enough to carry the series. This show has plenty of creativity in any case, but it definitely could have balanced this out a bit better.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Silly, corny, creative and strangely enough well built up and really fun to watch.
Characters: 7.5/10 – Mikono… even for a Shoji Kawamori female lead she is useless. This show excels in its chemistry, but the characters remain two-dimensional.
Production-Values: 9/10 – Tons and tons of eye candy, plus a godly soundtrack that is the best of the year so far.
Setting: 8,5/10 – Excels in its themes that are often completely bizarre.

Suggestions:
– Basquash!
– Ben-To
– Cobra the Animation

AKB0048 – 09 & Aquarion Evol – 26

by psgels, posted in AKB0048, Aquarion Evol

AKB0048 this week was all about challenging the suspense of disbelief. I mean, the show makes no sense, but that is no reason why it doesn’t have to worry about it. The thing with this episode wasn’t its realism, but rather how ridiculously incompetent it made the people from Des look, which is a pretty major issue for this series. They just barge in with tanks and fail to hit anything, they get outsmarted by a bunch of kids like it’s nothing. The kids who spoke two languages were a nice touch by the way.

Also, the difference between this series and Eureka Seven is HUGE. This stands out, because the two series do sortof touch upon the same themes. However, where Eureka Seven is all about protecting children while using them as a necessary evil, AKB0048 is completely reckless. They send out out girls who are barely able to stand and the competitive atmosphere is so bad that this seems to be the norm, because nobody finds this strange or peculiar.
Rating: * (Good)

So Mari Okada has been known for her completely screwed up endings and dark themes; just look at Lupin and AKB this season. Shoji Kawamori meanwhile loves trolling romance endings. But yeah, Aquarion Evol just had to end with a happy ending. This series is all about letting love sparkle. Any other type of ending would have made no sense. And indeed we here have an action-packed final episode that resolves the main romance, introduces a new one (Kagura and Zessica), resolves an eon-old romance. Oh, and Mix got her boobs back… why?

The two planets moving together was definitely reminiscent of Basquash and its huge moon. Beyond that this ending was fairly standard: definitely fun from start to finish, but the only special part was the music. That godly music definitely didn’t disappoint here. I do want to yell at Mikono, though. In the end, she really was a typical Kawamori female lead: never really doing anything and only being important by being the male lead’s crush and having mystical powers that happen to be central to the plot. This episode sealed the deal: she finally tried to actually use her powers (like what she should have done ages ago), and here Amata comes and ruins everything by going “you can’t change him by yourself! Let me help and protect you!”
Rating: *+ (Great)

Eureka Seven Ao – 10

by psgels, posted in Eureka Seven Ao

Sorry for the delay on this episode. But really, do check it out because Eureka Seven Ao just got better here.

One of the many reasons the original Eureka Seven was so great is was how well and inventively it portrayed the mental states of its characters. Even though the plot and themes of Eureka Seven Ao are completely different, this is really the episode I’ve been waiting for. It’s not like this was as extreme as some of the stuff that happened in the first Eureka Seven, but still: the scene in which Ao stood in the middle of all those civilians getting killed was an awesome point for him to break down. Later on in the episode, I also loved how the creators portrayed the adrenaline flowing within him as he experimented with fleeing inside a tent.

The tent parade by the way was also very creative, not to mention how this episode shed more light on what the Secrets are and how they act. Beyond that, this episode had some really good moments for two members of the supporting cast. The chief in particular really made use of his role as the team leader this time.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Zetman – 12

by psgels, posted in Zetman

Okay. And here this episode comes and does something very interesting with Jin. After first challenging Kouga’s sense to be a hero, this episode was all about challenging Jin’s resolve to protect others. On top of being completely action-packed that really put the detail in the facial expressions in this series to good use, I really liked the part in which Jin was forced to choose to die, or get his powers back with the risk of turning evil. The thing was that Haitani could have easily been bluffing and there were a lot of ways to interpret his words, yet just dying and leaving everything to the psychotic Kouga also wouldn’t have helped anyone.

The result was very interesting for his girlfriend, who turns out to have been a player, set up by Haitani as a psychological warfare. Kouga meanwhile completely lost it by shooting both his father and mother, although he missed the vital organs of his mother apparently (makes sense, as he wasn’t aiming for her).

Zetman is rushed. But for a rushed series that is based on a much larger manga, it really has done a great job here. In fact, what I really hope for is that the creators just close off the story next week and treat the anime as a standalone series, rather than something incomplete, like what happened to shows as Deadman Wonderland or Kamisama Dolls.
Rating: **+ (Excellent+)